Kofi Annan’s post-UN publicity shop bestirred itself this week to deny a report by the New York Sun that Annan had bought a multi-million dollar home in Morocco.

That’s helpful of Kofi Annan to be so forthcoming, at last, with information pertaining to his personal finances and real estate arrangements. But it would look a lot better if Annan were at least as helpful about telling us not only what he doesn’t own, but what he does — and how and when he got it.

This is the Kofi Annan who as Secretary-General set up a financial “disclosure” policy for UN senior staff which did not actually entail disclosing anything to the public — and even under those conditions, he refused for months to file any “disclosure” form himself, finally doing so only confidentially, in-house, and only after many queries from the press.

This is the Kofi Annan who while still serving as Secretary-General of the UN apparently saw no problem with pocketing a $500,000 environmental prize from the ruler of Dubai, and gave it up only after running into the embarrassment of press reports that he had subsequently appointed as head of the UN Environment Program a member of the prize jury. Annan never did admit that taking the money was a conflict of interest in the first place.

This is the Kofi Annan who never did answer questions about what finally became of any UN documentation pertaining to the Mercedes shipped duty-free by his son, Kojo Annan, into Ghana under false use of Kofi Annan’s name and UN perquisites.

This is the same Kofi Annan who never did explain why, before he became Secretary-General, he and his Swedish wife felt justified occupying a spacious NY State taxpayer-subsidized apartment while drawing a high-level tax-exempt UN salary. This is the same Kofi Annan who managed to depart the UN without ever giving a straight answer to the question of how that NY State taxpayer-subsidized apartment, on Roosevelt Island, somehow ended up in the hands of the family of his brother, Kobina Annan — who for part of that time has been serving as Ghana’s ambassador to Morocco.

Had Kofi Annan served for years as CEO of a private company, it might be expected that he limit his disclosures to denials and statements about what he doesn’t own. But Annan worked until last December in a position involving public trust at a public institution, where everything from his jet travel to his self-glorifying speech-writing shop was funded by public money. He has spent years trotting around the world lecturing us all on how to behave. If Anann wants to do more of that, it would be a lot more seemly for Annan to produce that financial disclosure form he refused last year to disclose, and tell us not only what he doesn’t own by now, but what he does.